


Fugue

by LNJames



Series: Suddenly Everything Has Changed [15]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-03-13 22:09:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18949618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LNJames/pseuds/LNJames
Summary: Say electromagnetic radiationSeason 2 & Season 4 gently re-imagined or referenced. Canonish, with liberties and justice for all.





	Fugue

_Oh star, how you emit back, swallow unbound_

Boston was a maze of crooked streets and one-ways to everywhere and nowhere at the same time, enough that Lena cursed when someone honked behind her repeatedly as if her rented Audi A7 was a personal affront. Maybe it would have been easier to have hired a car and driver, but there was freedom and control that came with her own hands on the wheel. The Charles River ran along MIT’s campus roads and she smiled at the memories, cold and dark and wet though they be. She had one more stop before she left for National City and it would be a difficult one. The board of Luthor Corporation had orchestrated a coup and was about to hand the reins over to Lena instead of her mother now that Lex was behind bars and the world felt safe again. As she made her way through the city, passing houses older than her family’s name, Lena Luthor wondered how she would ever erase the image of Lex’s red sun madness and a jury doomed by his hand. Life was about to shift, one door closing and another opening.

“So have you come back with a changed mind and a full heart?”

Lena closed the door to the Back Bay walkup and was unsurprised to hear Jack Spheer’s voice calling down to her. He had enough surveillance in his old college brownstone than most banks.

“Clear eyes, Jack. Clear eyes.”

She smiled affectionately at him as she dropped her purse on the sofa and walked over to his bank of computers and simulators and makeshift innovation lab. Lena knew that he liked to come here on the weekends away from having to charm investors for his new lab and its expanding staff to think and tinker in private. Jack lifted his head, dark hair and eyes turning from a microscope to her as he smiled back.

“So we’ll go back to Metropolis because you can clearly see how amazing our future could be, full of my limitless charm and our life’s work.”

She sat down next to him, letting her eyes pour over computer readings out of habit, watching numbers spin across the screen.

“We discussed this. As charming as you’ve always been, I need to go.”

“What’s more important than curing cancer?”

Lena saw the way he looked at her, sad eyes and a hopeful smile that said he knew she would be leaving in the morning, She was on her way to run a company in turmoil and a legacy tainted. And she had her work cut out for her in the weeks ahead, the image repair alone was going to be a full time job. She also had an introduction to the Board, relocation of Luthor Corp’s base of operation to National City, an extensive discovery process of Luthor assets and business investments, pouring over the R&D products and prototypes, and a planned publicity event set up aboard the new suborbital spacecraft _Venture_. That last one was the Board’s idea as a way to kick off Lena’s tenure as CEO and flex Luthor product placements in an upcoming new market. Her schedule was already full and her eyes were tired from the backlog of organizational management reviews and financial disclosure documents she had been sent days ago.

“We got close to solving this, Jack, and I have no doubt that you’ll see it through. But I have to make things right. And after what..Lex did..I need to be a force for good, to lead the family company in a new direction.”

She watched as he sat back and ran a hand over his chin, scratching at his beard before he looked at her with a gentle smile. Jack Spheer was a good guy and their parting was bittersweet, but there was more out there and Lena was going to find it. Right now, her attention was needed elsewhere. Lena had a feeling that the next few years were going to be busy, to say the very least. It would take a long time to restore and reclaim the Luthor name from Lex’s legacy. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever get over the way her beloved brother turned into something she no longer recognized, his love for a Kryptonian turned into an obsession that turned into psychopathic destruction. It made her wonder if he had always had this inside him but she was too blind to see what was right in front of her eyes. It made her wonder what might be inside of her. Jack reached out his hand and put it on her arm, nodding at her with true affection.

“And I have no doubt you’ll make good on your word. When Lena Luthor puts her mind to something, very little can stop her. You are going to change the world, I know it.”

She smiled because it was a lofty goal, but one she knew she could achieve if she focused and if she did everything completely opposite of what her family would do. She could be different. She could be the Luthor who got away from whatever drove the others to cunning cruelty and madness. Lena looked at Jack and realized her time with him helped her get a taste of what it could feel like to do good in the world. The stark contrast to what Lex had done, what her family had done, felt like a lifeline and now was the chance at a new start and she was ready. There was just one little thing she needed to take care of before she left and Jack was the only one who could help.

“So I have a favor to ask.”

“Anything for you. You know that.”

“Be careful what you promise, Jack.”

Lena smiled when he laughed and put his hands up, knowing that he would in fact do anything for her no matter the cost. She would do the same and that trust did not come easily, yet Lena had let herself find a way to do just that with someone and it helped, just a little. She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a key, holding up the silver-gold piece of metal with three circles on the end and a set of three wards on the other.

“Do you still have that nanoplasmonic spaser?”

Jack raised his eyebrows and glanced over at his workbench.

“Do I ever leave home without it?”

Lena let out a soft laugh as she went over to the small mounted device they had created together, carefully setting the key made of lonsdaleite into the cradle and tightening the tiny vises. She reached into her other pocket and held up titanium thumb drive.

“I updated this connectome with a bit more data from my fMRI outputs. Can you pull it up please?”

Jack just raised an eyebrow as he took the drive and inserted it into his computing core and they both watched as a tractographic image appeared. Lena was looking at her brain, the one that was so prized by her family and the one that made her wonder what she was truly capable of when left to its own devices. The problem wasn’t her mind, the problem was her memories. One memory in particular. One memory that could and would be used against her if she let Lex have it. It wasn’t a matter of if, it was a matter of when he found it.

She had managed to keep a secret safe for ten years by hiding it deeper and deeper inside, locking it away in imaginary boxes with imaginary keys that she swallowed until there was nothing left for the Luthors to find. But now that she had openly betrayed Lex, it was only a matter of time before he plotted against her as if they were still playing the same chess game over and over again. Lena knew this was the long game, that he was already putting pieces in play from behind bars for redemption and for destruction and she would not be immune. A Kryptonian might be his target, but she would be in his crosshairs as well. That’s why she needed a long game of her own. It was the only way to keep something she cared about safe.

“What is it you’re up to, Lena?”

She leaned over and typed in lines of code, numbers that added up until one area of her brain image lit up like a tiny sun in the milky way of neural connections and dendritic threads. As Jack watched, she pulled up the spaser interface and typed in the exact coordinates shown on her brain map. With a tiny whirl, the plasmonic spaser went to work carving out the coded coordinates full of numbers into the edge of the key. She would keep that for later, in case it was ever safe again to decode it. Lena let out a deep breath and reached into her pocket once more, extracting a vile of cloudy white liquid swirling as if alive and holding it up.

“The less you know, the better, Jack. You’ll just have to trust me.”

He glanced at the image on the screen and the substance she held up.

“I don’t like the looks of this.”

She looked at him and had to believe that he was the right choice for this, but she needed him safe too. Lex already knew of their relationship and that meant he may never be safe, but she had to do her best.

“Remember that one pathway we went down for the Biomax prototyping on nano-neural excision of lesions in the brain?”

Their Biomax work was incomplete, a promising idea that they hadn’t quite finished before Lena got pulled into Luthor drama and the call to come to National City. Jack had already found investors for their company, but when she withdrew, he was going to be left to build something on his own. They both were about to go down separate paths so it was bittersweet. But Biomax was theirs, the glimmer of an idea that could one day solve what ails the human body and what makes them weak. The science of it all, the challenge, the problem to be solved, was too alluring for Lena to let go even if she needed to switch gears and run a company. There was still room in her life for uncovering mysteries that made her brain whirl and her heart beat. Lena placed the vile of fluid into one of the jet injectors on Jack’s bench and pressed it against her arm as Jack reached out and put his hand on hers before she went further.

“I remember. And do you remember what happened in all of those simulations?”

Lena, of course, remembered. They hadn’t been able to find a way to keep the nanotechnology from eating cells alive once they got a taste of them. There was no off switch, no centralized control board to call off the army from invading the entire neural network. The numbers never added up just right, the parcellation vectors were too vague, and Lena could never get the hydrolase mixture perfect. Jack had called what she was doing alchemy in his teasing way, asking her whether she had found her magic formula yet. Now, with a new purpose, she had reconsidered her past mistakes and radically modified her approach to be more precise - the payload coordinates were now infused in the mix so it went exactly to the spot on the neural map. Lena now knew that dephosphorylation was the answer instead of its opposite, cleave instead of bind. In her hand, she held a substance designed to do one thing and one thing well - mesoscale rewiring of the brain.

Or more specifically, her brain. Or even more specifically, she was going to cleave out the tiny bright area of her brain that lit up when she remembered a dark night years ago. Lena Luthor was going to remove a golden girl who flew through the air and caught her with hands that stung against her skin, eyes as blue as lapis lazuli. It was the only way she could be sure that Lex would never unlock the box inside of her that held someone from the stars. She was no fool and now that she was moving to National City, it was clear who that golden girl became. Lena let herself silently say a name, if only for a fleeting moment, before she pressed the trigger, a white cloud sluiced through her veins, and her brain, her stubborn foolish hopeful brain, instantly forgot.

_Supergirl_

***

The building itself was tall and intimidating, not so much because it was a solid gray concrete and glass structure reaching for the sky in National City, but because of the name prominently displayed in a column claiming that space up high. _Luthor Corp_. It wasn’t as if everyone in this city didn’t know whose name was on the building and why. The Luthor family wasn’t unknown and those with eyes and ears had ample opportunity to form opinions about them. It certainly didn’t help that Alexander Luthor had caused such pain and suffering with his plot to kill Superman that the name and everything it touched was poison, figuratively and literally. It wasn’t lost on Kara and the swirl of emotions that Clark felt as they had walked into the building was just under the surface. They were following a lead from the Venture incident to its logical end, or it’s beginning, she wasn’t sure which.

Now, the receptionist, a young woman who glanced at both of them with unease, tapped out a few messages on her tablet as they waited. Kara gripped the pad of paper she had in her hand as if she were going to take notes. When Clark said “Let’s go”, he didn’t say bring her cape, he said “be ready”. She wasn’t sure for what, but with Cat Grant’s voice echoing her head and a clock winding down on a major life decision, she had looked around her sparse office and empty desk for something, anything to be useful. Clark was in reporter mode, on the hunt for information and Kara was along for the ride, her bag and a spiral bound notebook with completely blank pages in her hands. Life was shifting under her feet and Kara cleared her throat when a ding at the end of hall revealed an elevator opening and a cluster of people emerging, all following behind a woman clearly in charge. Clark gave her a side eye and they watched as people peeled off in different directions at her terse instructions.

Kara’s eyes followed as the woman with long dark hair strode ahead of them, black skirt and heels moving with purpose. Clark led as they entered into a shiny, white office in the sky. Ceiling to sky windows rose behind a modern, curved desk, the sun shining outside a city bustling with the work day. Everything in the office was precise, bright white or chrome except for the woman in black. Lena Luthor. Heir to Luthor Corp, according to Clark’s quick rundown on the elevator up. She was a presence in a black suit and red silk blouse and clearly unaffected by their visit and well-prepared as she addressed them while continuing into her executive office on a mission.

“There’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for why I wasn’t aboard the Venture yesterday.”

Kara watched as she moved to hang her coat, heels clicking across the floor. Clark spoke to her back since she hadn’t really turned to acknowledge them.

“Well, that’s why we’re here.”

Lena kept walking, her words filling the space while Kara followed inside, her eyes taking in the windows and the view, the polished and white knickknacks arranged just so. An assistant deposited documents onto the desk and left them.

“There was an emergency regarding the planning for a ceremony I’m holding tomorrow. I’m renaming my family’s company and I had to cancel.”

Kara took a breath at something on the edge of her mind, the air in the office turning charged. When she licked her lips, a hint of a salt whisper raced inside her and her hands shook enough that she clutched the empty notebook to her chest. Clark’s good natured chuckle barely hid his skepticism.

“Lucky.”

Kara watched the back of Lena Luthor as she hung her purse and ran a hand through her hair while she let a little laugh out and turned around to face them.

“Lucky is Superman saving the day.”

For a moment, she was mesmerized, green eyes barely glancing her way before Clark let out another short laugh.

“Not something one expects a Luthor to say.”

There, of course, was history and Kara knew some of it, not all. Clark was reluctant to share much about his friend turned foe, Lex Luthor, and she knew it was a painful subject. After all, Lex had tried to kill Superman multiple times in multiple ways, the final attempt from Metropolis was reminiscent of Krypton’s dying light, the sun turned red and dangerous and deadly before they arrested Lex. Kara had read of the trial and its tragedy, how Lena and James had both testified against Lex and how the jury and judge had lost their life at the guilty verdict. It had been Alex who had told her the full story late one night after dinner and wine. How Lex Luthor had befriend her cousin and betrayed him all the same. It was Alex who had hinted, gently, that Lex’s interest in her cousin was...unusual. When Kara pressed, Alex had just sighed and said _Only someone in love and obsessed would do what he did, Kara. That’s the rumor_. Clark never spoke of it that way, but it had stuck in her head. Lex Luthor was ruthless enough that he would destroy the world when he couldn’t have what he loved. Something compelled Kara to speak up at that moment.

“Right. And Supergirl was there, too.”

Lena Luthor paused, her eyes now fully on Kara and for a second, she heard it. Doors opening, doors closing, chambers filling and emptying only to fill again and again. It had been years, time and life stretching between then to now and she couldn’t be sure. There was a curious smile on Lena’s lips as she regarded Kara and began walking towards her desk.

“And who are you exactly?”

Lena passed by her, jasmine in the air searing into Kara’s brain and causing her fingers to tingle, caught off guard enough to stumble on her words.

“Umm..uh..I’m Kara Danvers. I’m not with the Daily Planet, I’m with CatCo magazine. Sort of..”

The mind was a funny thing, sometimes, and hers in particular had been through a lot already. That’s why she couldn’t trust it entirely. But that was a secret she told no one. All that time in the Phantom Zone had left her mind searching for what she had lost and sometimes she wondered if what she lost was herself. And sometimes it made her think that it was easier if she forgot her head and followed her heart and the way her body felt. It had been too long since her lungs had filled with the sound of the ocean, too long since her ribs had poured out a golden song, too long since her hands had held a darkness that stung like bees against her fingertips. Kara tried to pay attention to the conversation, tried to be helpful, but there was something churning inside of her, spinning on repeat.

“I’m just a woman trying to make a name for herself outside of her family. Can you hear that?”

And with a glance, Lena caught her eye and Kara’s mind played tricks on her, words unraveling out and reaching in until a needle skipped a beat.

“I’m just a woman trying to make a name for herself outside of her family. Can you understand that?”

Kara blinked, the words weaving their way into her head and warming the spaces between her ribs. Her mouth reacted before the rest of her could think.

“Yeah..”

Lena held her gaze briefly, gray-green eyes focused on her and it took Kara back, retracing steps, minutes and hours and days and years, from National City to Midvale, from an office of white to an ocean of black. Yes she heard it. Minor chords and major keys connecting together, unlocking a golden room inside her where she kept the things she secretly loved safe. How often do you find what you’ve lost when you stop looking for it? How often does it appear when you’ve given up and put it out of your mind? What is dark magic if not every ray of light in absorb of all? Say black body of stars. Say my galaxy.

In an instant, Kara Zor-El remembered everything.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow these chords, find the threads, do you hear it?
> 
> Interlude in B Minor: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14800022/chapters/36741693
> 
> Interlude in E Major: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17178824
> 
> Arioso: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18637375


End file.
